Actually. it has far exceeded our expectations. We knew what was coming after "its" presentation at Blizzcon but boy did they go ham to meet that "pride and accomplishment" (and then some).
I strongly disagree with letting Cheng get away with his "gems aren't gear" pedantry. No, gems are a type of gear by any reasonable definition. They are items you equip to provide all sorts of passive bonuses; QED. The fact that you put the gems into sockets in your items doesn't change the fundamental fact that they are also a type of gear.
I fully agree. Same goes for the crests: they are clear lootboxes, although Blizz tries to hide them behind rifts. That's why Belgium and the Netherlands already banned the game.
Also since gems directly scale your "gear" stats they are in fact in many ways more important than the "gear" he is trying to hide behind not selling. Upgrading a pair of pants in D:I might give a couple of stat points, upgrading a gem in those pants will scale stat points across all gear pieces and probably end up giving you at least 5-6 times more increase in power than upgrading a gear piece directly.
@@NATIK001 Exactly. I'm a bit surprised Cheng is playing this semantic game, because if the intent was not to have gems be "gear" they could have done a much better job hiding it. For example, they could have made them work similar to constellations in Genshin Impact, where you can unlock permanent passive bonuses by using what amounts to rare consumable items. The fact that you can upgrade gems and slot them in & out of your gear to give the specific bonuses you want in the moment makes it that much more apparent that gems are in fact a type of gear.
I cannot stress this enough. Remember that this was all intentional. They chose to make the grind long and unsatisfying to manipulate you into spending money. They chose to make the early game fun and fast paced to give you the dopamine rush so that they could rip it away. They are actively trying to make addicts out of people. They are not game developers and this is not a game. It's a scam with pretty colors and buttons.
Yup, blizzard literally has a job posting for a psychologist so that they can organize the real money shops in a way that people will pay more and more $
Good point. With no mans sky we were angry because the developer failed to develop the game they wanted to make. On diablo immoral the reason we hate the game is because it is EXACTLY the game they wanted to develop.
I was standing in my kitchen making coffee and you caught me off guard with, "Horadric bullshit box." I started laughing so hysterically I think I scared my dog. Good show, Bellular.
As a German gaming site put it: Diablo Immortal as a Blizzard product is like the old high school friend who calls you after years to ...sell you some shady insurance policy. And you stand there dumbfounded, asking. "What... what happened to you? You used to be so cool."
I did my own research into this, played to around paragon 50 as a wizard (f2p) and levelled another class to level 50 as I worked on the guide. I won't give that link (which would be tacky) but there's a few points and links I will share that Bellular haven't really covered and when you start to understand... First off, Elder rifts are the game's loot box. A glorified slot machine. Didn't fool Belgium and Netherlands, but the rest of the world let it slide. (well, maybe not China :D :D :D Have to see.) If you haven’t figured it out already, the end boss in Elder rifts is irrelevant, as are all trash mobs before it. The Elder rift is a loot box, pure and simple. Sure, it is disguised, but it’s a loot box all the same. You are paying before the run to pre-load the ‘wins’. If you fail the 'rift' you get your crests return to try again. Kind of them. Using the slot machine analogy, you put the coins in the slot (the crests - bought with orbs, bought for cash - into the slots) and you pull the handle (run the rift). The casino (Blizzard) guarantees you ‘something’, even if it’s only one cherry (1-star legendary), but that row of bells or 777 (2/5-star or better), boy are you gonna need a much bigger bag of tokens! Any claim by Blizzard and Wyatt Cheung that the orbs are not ‘gear’, that’s it’s ‘misinformation’, that the game is not 100% pay-to-win are just PR lies. *(To max a character you will need over 5,000 such legendary orbs in all) As you can see, orbs are important to the game. They are epically legendary in terms of Activision’s profits. And Blizzard will cripple anything and everything that gets in the way of their profits, no matter what. ... What? 5,000 ?/5 gems to max your character? No way. That's BS. Well, I'm not about to try but a few respected sites have, like Wowhead. To be honest their description is so convoluted that I struggled to follow it, but I got a figure of around 48 copies of the gem you want plus 105 more to salvage so 153 2/5-star gems to get to your first 5/5 level 10 gem (I think). As I say, in made my head hurt even trying. www.wowhead.com/diablo-immortal/guides/legendary-gems-upgrading-ranks-gem-power Luckily another well known site (Maxroll) had prepared a tldr; version, which arrive at 73 dupes and 4,450 gem power (so 213 2/5-star gems) That just gets you to first base and you are down about £15,000 to £20,000 by now. Then you want the other 5 gems. Then you want the dohicky up ascend and open up the gem (which Bellular and others have touched up slightly). Hidden inside this are slots for 4 more legendary gems, each of which wants levelling up. Oh, and by the way, these are specific gems, and they are locked. You have to level up each gem to find out what the next one is. Those 3,200 1-star gems you just destroyed to get the first gem to level 10, you kind of needed them. Better start swiping again. So, for a fully pimped toon, you are looking at needing up to 6,390 legendary gems, a quarter of which much be specific dupes. immortal.maxroll.gg/resources/gems ... Finally, I found a 'Diablo Immortal Elder Rift generator' to calculate the cost of that gem you want! Not the same, but before I found this I did try it with spreadsheets and random number generators. This is quicker, less maths, more fun. Just set yourself a goal like 'get my first 2/5 Bile gem' or 'get my first 5/5 Blood-soaked jade' and have at it. For the BiS Blood-soaked Jade, using the generator, it cost $21,800. I got it cheap, given the odds. The second simulation cost $86,975. Mostly ‘Chip of Stoned Flesh’ dropped, but I did see 6 ‘Seeping Bile’. In all, I had 30 5/5 by the time I got the drop I wanted, along with 32,429 1 and 2-star gems. Great value, eh! dimi777.github.io/diablo-rift-simulator/ .
Let's cut the BS. Wyatt is a liar and Blizzard knows this isn't a game, it's just a donation box for fools with more money than sense. Call a spade a spade.
@@swoldierc1972 doesn't matter if the game is good if it's monetized this heavily and you will never reach full character potential or get competitive in multiplayer without paying thousands. No one is saying the gameplay isn't fun. That's not the point
What I'm most upset about is that so many people knowingly paid thousands of dollars to play scuffed Diablo 3 endgame. Streamers in particular. How dare you support these business practices to this extent and thus enable them in the future like this, when even the game itself is nothing special? There was no big secret to uncover, no veiled truth to unearth - everyone knew from day 1 that it was a shameless pyramid scheme yet you willingly poured fuel on its engine. Gaming as a whole is worse for this idiotic stunt and it's not just on Blizzard.
Sadly, they get their money back and then some more with their streams. We all saw how much Asmongold spent on Lost Ark and he obviously got it all back with the streams and youtube channels. Quin69 spent nearly 20k on Immortal yet he definetly made more with his clips like the one where he "accidentally" bought the wrong gems. Streamers don't care if they are normalizing these predatory practices on their viewers. They only care to get views on their streams to gain money even if it means spending some pocket change (because that's what that much money is for them).
@@lerekt7818 The viewers do enable the streamer but ultimately it is the streamer who decides on the content streamed. Somebody who subbed to Asmongold three weeks prior to Diablo probably didn't know what they would end up paying for.
Once again, one cannot help but feel 'impressed' by this atrocity. So much research, psychological science and whatnot went into the creation of this avaricious behemoth, this whale bait of a game, in order to create the ultimate money vacuum. Never before has there been this much planing and scheming to create a 'perfect' product. Just imagine - the things such power could achieve if the people behind it intended or were allowed to use it for actual entertainment, escapism and just one hell of a good time. Truly, this is the antithesis of what gaming is supposed to be.
If nothing else, it will make for compelling research into the greed and manipulation of the industry . It will be seen as a case study, mentioned in features by the Wall Street journal. In the financial times, there will probably be academic papers about it etc.
Governments have spent huge amounts of money and thrown vast numbers of G men to cracking organized crime that made less then these games and were actually less psychologically, if not morally, shady. This is just unregulated organized crime with a veneer of legality hiding behind the ‘video game’ Defense field.
I have noticed this happening in almost every market. This is post-capitalism. Everything feels like a scam these days. Corporations have an incentive to sell a bad product and making people believe it's good over selling a product that's actually good. Videogame industry is a clear as day example of why capitalism just ruins shit. When profits are more important than putting out a quality product they have to either scam people or reduce quality. Videogames used to be so good in the old days.
So I'm getting video recommendations from Catholic priests saying how video games are a path to evil. (The algorithm is pretty nuts sometimes.) Anyway, this game proves that, in some cases, it is true.
I do not believe they did any research here. I know they hired the experience from the gambling industry. The math models are the same, the techniques are the same. The differences are the lack of regulations and the target audience. There are well tested models which they are following.
I have ground my way up to Level 60 Paragon 55 totally as a free to play player. (Ironically, I tried to purchase a low cost bundle to get me through one of the level locked stages of the plot, but Blizzard's commerce engine kept crashing.) I'm going to stop play now as all that's left is griding to rank up gems and collect gearsets. As Bellular Gaming says, I can't be competitive with paying players in any of the PVP arenas because there's such a disparity in power levels.
Normally I'm a "Don't yell at the devs yell at the publisher." But that has a limit to where it stops being "they are just doing what they are told" and becomes a situation where if you had any integrity you wouldn't be in this situation to begin with.
But the devs and the publishers are that same here, you need to accept that Blizzard has been gone for a decade now, there is no functional difference between Activision, Blizzard, and Activision-Blizzard.
@@Sevaria and this is even more deepened by the fact that it was NetEase who completely developed the game ... Remember in the first hours after the release ... There wasnt even Blizzard in the opening screen ... Just NetEase
18:34 i just noticed something, they have a "don't ask again today" button, when the price for opening each chest gradually increases, so if a player decides to click it because he just assumes "oh, they just cost 100 platinum", then they will quickly have all of their currency drained after they open a bunch more chests
This game is state of the art in extracting money from you. Every psychological trick to hook and extract money of you is applied. Blizzard ceos are probably proud that they created this "masterpiece"
@@LuriTV Do you really think they actually gice a crap? Just another storm in the teapot and as especially gamers have shown time and again, they nag and bitch and moan and then continue to shovel their money into the jaws of the very same companies they were just bitching about.
Mobile game companies were the first who actually hired professional psychiatrists and psychologists in order to actively increase the addiction potential of their games and you can bet that Blizzard has a lot of them on the payroll. It is utterly and completely disgusting. I remember a record a journalist secretly made more than 10 years ago during a conference of mobile game makers and one of them proudly reported how they had increased the addiction potential of their products and how he 'would not allow _his_ children to touch this with a 10 feet pole'. Those people are the scum of the earth and gamers keep rewarding them for that.
My interest in Diablo IV was already tenuous, given everything that we've learned about Blizzard in the last 4 years. Seeing the debacle of D: Immortal didn't tip the scale- that point has long since passed- but it did drain away the last drop of confidence I had. Diablo was my favorite Blizz property, and sparked my interest in ARPGs. To look at news of D4 (including Bellular's own coverage) and feel nothing at all is so deeply WEIRD; it feels like I really should feel SOMETHING, even if it's sadness or anger, or even seething distrust. It's just gone now.
My interest in the Diablo franchise dropped when the devs for D2 left. (That was before WoW was even released.) It was killed entirely when D3 released. Mind I keep hoping something will rekindle such interest. Which is why I keep looking at content for the franchise. But nothing is indicating that it will ever improve.
Lmao, you may have lost interest but the moment theny announce 4, all will be forgiven and you will all go back to being hyped and sucking blizzards balls.
All this crap made me already make the decision to not touch Diablo 4 anyway, but I've just learned that it won't even have a real SP mode, let alone campaign. I don't care about PvP, I don't care about MP, I do play a bit co-op every now and then and that was it. I was always more interested in a solid SP experience. I am fully aware how important MP etc is for most gamers, but the old Diablo games worked perfectly fine with an SP mode integrated and there is zero reason to give up on it. That is, of course, if you are not gung ho to turn this whole shitshow into a 'life service'.
@@Furzkampfbomber games with single player modes *are* the most successful, in terms of consistent long-term playerbases. This is why games like Diablo, Diablo 2, Warcraft, Starcraft, CoD and Halo have lasted so long and become so iconic in gaming culture. It is why franchises like Legend if Zelds, Mario Bros, Pokémon and Sonic are so well known and continue to sell, even outperforming most other franchises. It is why those games and franchises have such staying power, and part of why they have become staples of popular culture. Don't misunderstand, multiplayer games can make massive profits, but that alone doesn't give those games staying power, it doesn't retain players in the long-term. It doesn't usually turn them into franchises or cultural phenomena.
@@nobodyshome6792 That is very interesting to read, I actually was under a very different impression. Maybe that is because it's an intrinsic part of everything MP that people are talking more about it and because it's more social by nature. Especially when looking at the Halo or Diablo games, it is easy to come to the belief that the SP part is more of an entrance point, an elongated tutorial for the MP part. To be fair, I can't say _anything_ about the Mario or Pokemon games, apart from the more... fleeting impressions I have from them. I was going to ask for your explanation of the phenomenon you describe, but could this already be the, or at least part of an explanation? That a good SP part is what makes people interested in what the MP part might have to offer? Or, looking at the time aspect, that people might be more willing to give a 10 year old SP game a try than a relatively new MP only game and then get hooked and interested, especially when seeing that game X still has a very active MP community? Ot that they come back to a game they feel nostalgic about after having played the SP part a decade or so ago and then get hooked by the MP part they never played back then? Anyway, thanks for answer and info! EDIT: I was just thinking about Pokemon, Zelda and many of the other games you have mentioned and in combination with the time factor, how I see/perceive those games might support at least the 'npstalgia' thesis, although in some kind of reverse way. Because it is teaching me how important of a factor nostalgia actually is. I grew up in the GDR, consoles or computer games were not a thing until the wall fell. When that happend, I was way too old for the Mario games, I was jumping right to the C64, then the Amiga 500 and then switched to PC. I actually started my 'consolero career' when I was already 30 or so and although I was and am catching up to a lot of franchises etc, there are some that are massively popular while I could not be bothered less. On the other hand, there are a lot of franchises connected to the Commodore era that I feel strongly connected to and I would definitely be willing to give anything knew based on _those_ a try way more readily than anything else. So either way, SP nostalgia is surely an important part of this phenomenon.
After he started bring up the 3rd currency, I was annoyed. After the 5th, I was lost, confused and disgusted. After what felt like the 12th, I was baffled that this game hasn't been pulled yet for predatory practices.
They want to separate your money y dwindling it down to many currency it's a tactic they learned by speaking with their psychologists it's really disgusting.
Wow, it's like they specifically tried to put every sneaky tactic they could find into the game's monetization. Heck there could be even more in there at the level of people spending 50k on it that we don't know about. It's impressive, if also deeply disturbing. They must really consider their customers to be more wallets than humans to act like this.
They give a fuck about poor customers. Why should they if there's rich af people that just have to be baited? What deeply worries me more that a rich as fuck small minority dictates these days what's on the menu.
Honestly I feel I'm done with Blizzard completely. There was some hope that after all the backlash they would learn from their mistakes but here they prove that we are closer to cattle on a farm to them than people who play games. The fact that they even let this release even remotely close to this state and didn't change things right out the gate is absurd in the extreme. I'm not even going to give Dragonflight a chance. Even if it is great it is likely going to be a lure so that they can snatch away more money from people down the line. Blizzard as we remember it is long dead and I doubt we will ever see a great game come from it now without deliberate caveats. It was a great run, but this isn't the Blizzard any of us remember, and I doubt it ever will be again. Maybe Microsoft can turn things around with a fresh new team, but beyond that I feel the Blizzard we love is just a fond memory now. Maybe it's time to let it go and turn our love towards something that will actually love us back.
Every time I hear about Diablo Immortal's machinations, it makes me want to take a shower. Just imagining the psychopaths and narcissists sitting around coming up with these monitization systems, identifying what works in other games so they could create their own versions here, absolutely chilling and disgusting. This form of game monitization is an enemy to humanity.
@@Hotshot2k4 it's a discussion about corrupt corporations run by psychopaths and narcissists who don't care about the well-being of others. Sorry if I triggered your medical trauma.
Small addendum to legendary gems on the market - Blizzard, in their mercy, allows free players to craft legendary gems in Westmarch. Those are unbound too and therefore sellable. "Technically" one can craft a 5 star legendary gem, provided they farmed essence leftovers from rifts for about two weeks (because they have a weekly cap ofc) - but chances of actually getting that are NOT disclosed. I did it once, got a crappy one star. So that might as well be actually no chance or far less than actually getting a 5-star from a paid crest. And remember - this is a single dice roll every two weeks or more. Thank you so much Blizzard.
I'm not sure sure how accurate those crafting chances were, but i've seen a list of the chances of crafting random legendary 5stars gems 2*= 3.375% 3*= 0.90% 4*= 0.18% 5*= 0.045% Good luck on anyone wishing to get one that way.
I can't believe how far they went. They should have tested the waters more, ease the audience into the P2W. Or.. they shouldn't taint existing PC IPs with P2W. That's another option :)
For me I lost interest at 60 paragon 10. As a free to play player you hit this loop where you literally need to dedicate multiple times throughout the day; getting blessings at 3pm, vault raids 4pm, hilt vendor resets, and battlegrounds times. Then find the time to also do your challenge rifts, bounties and contracts, while collecting essence. Then finally making progress on the battle pass to make sure you have enough hilts to buy the next store reset. Also I would just play PVP for the dailies and be fodder for swipers. All in all I would have to drop 4+ hours a day on a MOBILE game to efficiently progress my character. And if I missed any of that because of IRL stuff; I felt like shit. Gj Blizz, you made me walk away from this game faster than BF2042 and Halo infinite.
D4 choose a class: Barbarian, Monk, Lowborn, Highborn (unlocked in special edition), [megawhale] (unlocked by preorder the special premium collectors edition, upgrading store to lvl 50 or backer status Consierge).
The single thing, I find the most shocking is the sheer amount of fanboys, that stand 200% behind Blizzard even now. Defending how they get taken advantage of. It's a lost cause. As long as these guys exist, it will get worse.
I haven't spent a dime on game and top 25 crusader on a full server at level 60/70 and have several 12+ kill bg games including a 19-0 on high ranks , majority of players haven't spent a dime and you can easily tell and everyone is enjoying the game and more and more people are joining daily . Hearthstone mobile is far more p2w in actuality. The only "paywall" is the awakening stone and as far as whales and pvp as people hit Hell 2 almost all battlegrounds fights are people in groups and alot of stunlock teams that negate any amount spent as even at absolute current maximum (there actually IS NOT a cap as gear scales forever) 3 people can stunlock you for 25 seconds bare minimum with no skill and at that point even Bellular's bad demonhunter will kill your 100k character. Mobile game veterans also understand everytime new content is added , it devalues all the money you spent outside of things like cosmetics and battlepasses (see note 2) Most importantly there is one constant in mobile gaming industry for over a decade , Whales get bored and leave , over 90% will leave often leaving all the longstanding players to surpass them until they whale again .
Note 2: PubG Mobile is top revenue of all games last few years on nothing but cosmetics and battlepasses which make up over 80% of spending in mobile gaming worldwide and whales aren't a major source of income, what makes more money 3 million battlepasses (15 mil) or 100 100k whales (10m) and the 15m is monthly vs whale is one big spend so after 10 months its 12 million for whales vs 150 million from "Battlepass Andy" This is why mobile gamers sound "shilly" we know how industry runs , you won't find the actual info on social media or platforms 🤣🤣🤣 Financial and Business and industry sources give the actual numbers nobody on UA-cam even bothers to lookup and to us 1.2 Billion gamers+ , people like Bellular look like a fool who hasn't done any research or understand gaming industry at all .
You didnt go over charms. It costs 500 platnium to extract a rank 5 charm into a skill stone. If there is only one skill for your class in that skill stone, you are basically rolling a 20% chance to get the skill you want added onto your main charm. The skill stone is consumed in this process. The skill stones at auction average 1k- 2.5k platnium, your basically paying to roll for a perfect 5/5 skill charm. Idk if duplicate skills on a skill stone will affect the rng but usually the good charms arent sold due to the 2.5k platnium cost. If you have a 3/5 charm for your class thats good, you dont sell it. 2.5k platnium is too low of a price for the rarity and cost it takes to get a good charm. The kicker is that these charm skills give like 2% buff to each skill. To get a 5/5 skilled charm for your class that has good skills is...difficult to obtain.
When it is all said and done, is anyone really surprised? Was diablo immortal ever going to be anything else? Why on gods green earth would Blizzard want a mobile diablo? To sell costumes? Raise your hand if you really believed that.
Look, no one was saying they can't monetize the game. Its the manner in which it is monetized that's egregious. Even the myriad of mobile games I've played don't do all things immortal does. Many mobile devs will adapt one or 2 types into their monetization method but blizzard took the book on monetizing and put every single strategy in.
I got a whole new respect for you and you've earned another fan. Keep it up bellular. Why donate to a streamer knowing full well your money is going straight to a loot box. You? You deserve the love.
The paywall really hits at Hell II. Thats when your gear score comes into its own and can only be countered with your wallet. I uninstalled at Paragon lvl 38. Completed the battle pass and did 11 bonus levels (for paltry rewards). The basic game loop consists of doing your dailys, making sure to make the one you're working on "featured" so you get more BP, because at this point you're chasing BP as completing a battle pass level is the only way of gaining a decent amount of XP. Once you've done your bounties and Pokemon hunt, its down to grinding dungeons on the off chance you might get a set piece. This is the F2P loop, and it's incredibly boring, even by Diablo standards. Another thing worth noting is that the Pokemon (sorry, "Bestiary") quests used to give out legendries like confetti prior to hitting lvl 60, once you start hitting the Paragon lvls that dries up straight away. I haven't done any data mining, but just based on anecdotal evidence alone its obvious that the loot tables are skewed. You can hit an 1,100 combat rating fairly easily, which is the first big milestone. After that, unless you're spending money, it slows down to a crawl. And lets not even talk about PvP.
I am stuck at 1022 for forever (Paragon 30) maybe I am unlucky but I don't really see a way to increase my power without money. Damn I feel like a fool for saying why back at blizzcon: "Not sure how I feel about it but I will give it a chance maybe it is good."
@@WyrmsouI I work away a lot because of my work so it’s pretty convenient for me, I’m not a snowflake that has an issue with a game I have not played, pretty much every mmo and new games have pay to win/progress features if that includes people paying for RWT and so on
I am f2p player now at paragon 54 with Cr around 1650. Hell 2 is really piece of cake. Beat lassal hardest setting. I was hoping it unlocks the next hellquery boss, but it didn’t, I guess they haven’t implement the next boss yet. This game is easily leveling up and get better legendary for higher Cr. I didn’t spend 1 cent, I love this game. It is very good to release stress by killing a lot of mobs and randomly get good gear. It is like a slot machine, fun to play and get good rewards, and it is all free! Not mention it gives tons of hilts which you can buy all the crests everyday. In turn you get tons of runes which you can get random 1, 2 or 5 star gems just like legendary crest. I have all 2 star legendary gems at level 2, working on getting them to level 3, all for free. Then I will buy 2/5 gem from the market using platinum and upgrade those. It is fun to see my character become stronger slowly. That is Diablo experience.
One thing I notice about all the DI coverage... a lot of menus. I rarely see gameplay, or see discussion of it. I don't know how accurate it is, but all the metagaming stat play looks like a pain to deal even without the mtx aspects. I tried it at Blizzcon and had no further interest in it despite it being relatively fun at the time, but also it was a streamlined demo with just gameplay and no gearing systems laid on top.
In east asia, we call these games 'pig farms'. There are hundreds made just like this one, and Netease is one of the biggest companies behind them. Most people are embarassed to admit they play these types of games because everyone knows they are just a different form of gambling. I know a guy who worked a service job but spent thousands in USD every month on these games.
If this is beating a dead horse then I believe there should be an extinction level-sized crater where the horse used to be. I absolutely love content shitting on Diablo Immoral lol, keep these coming
Got to paragon 34 and quit like 6 days ago. Once I got to Hell 2 there was a huge wall preventing me from getting any stronger and any power I did receive was miniscule.
Watching some of my favorite D2 NPCs be paraded around to promote the cash shop in the main story is what made me quit before the free hit was even done. Charsi, I forgive you - it wasn't your fault.
Yeah, at that point I just felt being actively mocked. Like "Loool, you sucker, come, here's the character you're nostalgic about, now give us money, you looser".
This is genuinely insane. Everything I've seen of this game makes me think it looks like a simplified D3. Only you can pay 10k in it, for some reason. I don't get the appeal. Totally free, free with minimal microtransactions, ok, if you really want to fiddle with something on a train or a waiting room... I do NOT get why so many people are sucked into this manipulative hellhole.
I’d like to revive a term, the “box price”. I’d like to see the box price listed along side the retail price. So what’s the difference? The retail price is same as what it’s always been what you pay when you buy, where as the box price is what you’ll have to pay to get everything promised in the box including everything in the loot boxes. Allow western consumers to make an informed decision at point of purchase!
I actively want this game to fail. I don't want this crap to infect other games that could have been good, but where the publishers look at this, see players will play it anyways, and demand this style of monetization get crammed in to everything just like loot boxes. I'm normally of the opinion that people should just play what they want, but this sickens me and anybody supporting it is actively taking part in making our gaming hobby worse. It's like if McDonald's started cutting their burgers with feces, and people kept eating there anyways. The pricey premium burgers are still pure beef, but the value menu is literal shit and people are eating it up because they like the fries. They're now making more money and getting away with it, so the competitors are going to follow suit.
@@skygradient6248 I mostly play indie games these days, aside from some major releases that I actually have faith in (From, Guerilla, stuff produced under Yoshi P but not SE as a whole). Unfortunately indie studios don't get control of major IP franchises, and it's painful to see stuff I've loved since childhood become these twisted perversions. I'd like to play a new Star Wars-themed game without worrying about getting a lightsaber up the ass while they rummage through my wallet.
Thanks for keeping bringing attention to this. I don't think the attention does much to deter terminally addicted blizzard fans tbh but at least good people are trying to fight this. If we can keep at least some people from falling into this trap and losing their money then it's worth it.
If the aim of the PVP system was to match players with comparable gear against each other they could very easily do so directly, without first pitting the minnows against the sharks and whales. They could have separate classes of competition within which similarly-geared players could compete on a more or less equal footing. Instead, the fact that whales get to farm f2p players until they reach a high enough rank is a feature of the system. Dunking on the peasants is the reward for swiping.
when the game was announced to critical boos, you only thought it was going to have basic levels of pay to win bullfuckery. only to find out years later that Morpheus was going to take you even further than you could have possibly imagined down that particular rabbit hole.
About 10 days ago i hit the level wall. All i wanted to do was play through the storyline once. But here i sit gated at level 44 needing lvl 46 to see next bit of story. I am out. The bounties that i need to grind to unlock the next bit of story are basically "Kill 10 Rats" quests that Everquest bored me with over 20 years ago.
I no lifed my way to paragon 12. I spent 8 dollars, BP and second dungeon bundle. I was top 10 in pvp top 30 in challenge rifts. Then I hit a wall. And it was a insane wall. The only way over the wall was pay cash.
A major problem (for the consumer) with this particular method of generating revenue is that the corporation has found a way to muffle the consumer's voice in the back and forth dialogue you mention at the end of the video. In a normal transaction, the customer trades their money for something of value, either a product or a skill, and the person providing said product or skill is incentivized to ensure their product or skill is of good value because otherwise the customer walks away from the trade. But the conman knows he doesn't have to provide a product or skill of good value as long as he can dupe a few customers into paying so much more for the scam that the loss of the rest of the customers doesn't matter. You can't vote with your wallet against a product like D:I, because the conmen at Blizzard aren't interested in delivering a good product in fair trade, they are interested in fleecing as much cash as possible from a small subset of rubes. As long as they pull in enough cash from the whales, the opinions and lack of business from everybody else is entirely irrelevant. These are the instances where the consumer needs to raise a stink. Voting with your wallet has zero impact here, best you can hope for is the destruction of Blizzard's reputation as a respectable entity.
With everything I have seen with immortal, I am not getting D4 when it is released. It’s sad! I have played Diablo since the first game. I am just tired of micro transactions in full priced games. I cannot trust that those games are not rigged to entice you to buy micro transactions cosmetic or not.
I don't believe their words, for they ring hollow as a rotten log. Immortal has destroyed their shell of an old image and revealed the parasite thats rotted them from the inside out.
I played through the game exactly once, without paying anything. Story progress was ok, but the further I got, the more annoying all the adds became. Furthermore, the game is overloaded with weird upgrading systems, which got me lost quite fast - battle pass, gems, horadric stuff... and every aspect wants it's share of your money.
If you are still a Blizzard consumer and aren't worried how Diablo Immortal will be impacting things like D4 or WoW Dragonflight moving forward, you are living in a bubble/are willfully ignorant. Honestly, Bellular is too generous when he believes the D4 team is honest in their attempts to try to pitch the game as a genuine game. D4 has a cash shop, they aren't even hiding it now; previous Diablo games didn't even have cash shops. With all of the lies Blizzard has slung your way for years now, to earnestly believe them at this point is borderline insanity. What trends have they honestly displayed to show they've changed? None. They have, however, consistently showed, across all their IPs, that they love to say one thing and then show that in technicalities and legalities later that they were correct, but actually it was something else later. No borrowed power in Dragonflight? Well, technically Ion actually said they only wanted to move away from it and actually said he never envisioned the game would never 100% move away from it; he never gave exact finite parameters on how much borrowed power would be removed in Dragonflight. Blizzard as a whole, regardless of the team is utterly despicable. You can enjoy a game, nobody can take away the fun you enjoy when you play a game, but it does not change the fact that this entire company has 100% failed in it's capacity to treat it's consumers well; they have abused you all whether you admit it or not. It's just sad so many people fail to recognize it across the board.
I just knew as soon as they announced this game however many years ago, what was going to happen. And it ended up being worse than I thought, and I've completely lost my love for the franchise. Blizzard lost that spark they had back when they made fun games just to make fun games. Now everything is all about the monetization. It's sad really.
Thank you so much for your integrity, as always. I understand it can be tough calling out a company/game for their bullshit and is never easy, but I really appreciate the coverage you’ve put into the clusterfuck that is Immortal. Seeing this really scares me for what companies will have built in the metaverse or whatever it’s called since Facebook owns that now. I heard on NPR virtual real estate is already a thing, I think I heard seven figures for the space to open a Samsung store in the Korean metaverse.
As other content creators pointed out: Noone ever said d4 will Only have cosmetic items in the cash shop. They said it will be "based around cosmetic items"...which probably just means in d4 the skins will be giving you the combat rating or something... Not a game.
Diablo Immortal alpha was an amazing game just like D4 seems to be. Won't stop the execs from over ruling the devs destroying the game. D4 devs claim mean nothing because in the end they control nothing.
Thank you for putting up with this BS to inform us all of Blizzards garbage. Much appreciated. Found your channel due to immortal content. Never actually downloaded the game, thank god.
Imagine if they just charged €20 for the game and you got the full game with no tricks, no timelocks, no micropayments. Just the game. They'd still make hundreds of millions of dollars easily without people feeling angry and mad.
My initial reaction that turned me immediately off was how the first enemies that you swung on were a lot more spongy than any other action RPG I have ever played. Knowing that this was the type of game where power was attached to money this initial bullet spongy high HP pool enemy. Was a very strong indicator of what was to come. Basically it didn't feel like an action RPG it felt like a cash crap and this was only from the first dozen monsters but maybe it's just me
I can't say enough thanks to all streamers who played this clusterF of a cash grab. Watching Asmon, Rich, Quin and many more payers show how horrible DI is, was an eye opening experience. Not to mention people who play mobile games defend it. Not one of them can answer, why pay to win/ progress is so acceptable to them. Answer is always, it's a mobile game, that's how it is and should be...😳 And as a bonus point, median income in China is around 400€. If you are able to afford buying stuff to progress 100€/$ in mobile game and not feel the financial hit, fine. But how can one defend costs like these and say that they aren't predatory. With psychological manipulation going on this scale, how is that OK?🤯 I'm just so happy that they are blocked from entering that golden Chinese market. If it's stopped even for a short while, GREAT.
I play mobile games and DI is the scummiest greediest most bullsh*t piece of garbage I have ever seen. The fact that even China thinks this "game" is going too far should be telling enough. I curse the day in-game monetization became a thing and ruined the landscape for decades.
I am playing it at the moment. It is very interesting how I still feel the compulsion to spend money, even though I am very well aware of the psychological tricks used there.
It is a relief to see how EU started to handle loot box and gacha designs thanks to horrible cash grabs reskinned as games like this thing is. Hopefully in 5-6 years you won't be able to even publish "games" like these in EU.
I've played mobile rpg games for some time, Tales of Wind and Sprite Fantasia were only two ones that stood out well. Although Tales of Wind being more p2w in terms of getting more runs for a day, and Sprite Fantasia being lot less popular in general in EU. At least those two games (idk about Tales of Wind 100%), but once you've built your own island level high enough, you can cook buff food of different options, even increased drop rate food up to 5%. In Sprite Fantasia there is also pet skill that increases drop rate up to 5-7%, and divination gives drop rate % from 0-20 depending how lucky you are. It surprises me though why did they choose to force players to pay for loot to be better, when you could instead make drop rate function more practical in midgame by additional upgrades you can improve over time f2p, giving more motivation to keep playing and forming functioning teams, guilds and set up sentimental anchors for players to pay for support of others for e.x. They did fail the outcome of the rpg in this entirely, the lack of story, however ridiculous it could've been. Sprite Fantasia storyline is for example almost fully filled with jokes, memes and irony. Diablo Immortal is like lovehate child from any general RPG p2w oriented game and Dante's Inferno. Quite sad combination in fact.
I do find this whole thing odd. I've played Diablo 3 for ages, and as far as I can see from Imortal, it is a basic copy and paste of D3. In which case, if you like the gameplay you see in Imortal, why don't you just buy D3? Currently D3 (with Reaper of Souls) is often found on sale for the same price, if not cheaper, than a single 10 crest run in Immortal. Bonkers. In fact watching the Immortal game play gave me nostalgia pangs for D3, so I just booted up D3, had the same experience, and didn't have to pay a penny more.
You had a better experience, actually. Build and skill options are more limited in DI, and beyond the novelty of controlling an ARPG character on a mobile device and a few memorable spectacle moments in a couple dungeons (about the only thing I will give the game credit for doing right, and games like Lost Ark do the spectacle part much better) there is less to offer than D3 does.
Video gaming is a good reminder of where we are as a society. The loudest people are idiots who openly argue for practices that hurt them. If you think pay to win in a video game is ok. Then you are a stupid person, and need to be quiet when intelligent folks are talking. It’s that simple. Imagine playing basketball but one teams parents throw the ref 1000$ so their kids start with 20points on the board. That’s what this is. No stupid explanation will change you are getting rolled. And the company think you are so stupid they don’t even have to hide it.
This may well be one of the most important videos made in the gaming space. If this is how games will be in the future, dear god. I just hope the outcry is big enough, but seeing the revenue numbers… We may be doomed, because technically they just need to find 100 people who are really stupid. That‘s not even hard in todays time. :))))
I played Diablo 2 over and over again since i have a potato PC and I really loved it the one thing I didn't like about Immortal is , it's not a Story/lore based game anymore the missions are easy and short it is a PvP focused game that wants you to grind for items to pplay pvp the pay to win is really not an issue for players like me who just want to play the story of diablo
I went into Immoral with an open mind, I managed about 8 hours and it left such a bad taste in my mouth, all this game did was make me want to play Diablo 3
I bought Wolcen after trying Diablo Immortal. It's one of the few aRPGs I haven't played to death before. Wolcen isn't the best aRPG ever made but it's a million times better than shite DIablo Immortal.
If you haven't played Grim Dawn, that's another one to try, despite the fact that the team stopped creating new content for it after the last xpac a couple of years ago from what I understand, it just got a balance update like yesterday.
@@ImmortalPrime Welp, so much for that then, lol. Definitely a great game, I'm not much of an A-RPG player, but it quickly cemented itself as a favorite of mine too.
that was one of the most thorough game reviews i have ever seen. wow subbed for life man. this was my first video of yours and im blown away. great job man. wow.
Thank you for your honest review, atleast the positive from this garbage game is that countries are actually taking loot boxes and predatory systems in gaming more seriously
I still remember D3 at launch, which makes me think they will try their bs with D4. I'm curious about what they will pull off. And thanks to reviewers, I don't need to buy to find out for myself.
you people get the games you deserve.every time blizzard makes a new expansion or some game,you all rush to buy it or spend money to it,only to realise that everything they make is minimum efford designed to keep you busy,while milking you.i speak with my wallet,i havent touched a blizzard game for years and although i realise that im a drop in the ocean,at least i feel good
I got to character-level P50 only to find that the next stage of gameplay (dubbed "Hell 2") requires 1200+ combat rating. I had 925. But the only way to get better gear was to clear Challenge Rift floor-30. But how could I, when even floor-21 is flashing red text on my screen that the monsters are too tough! But... in order to defeat them, I need better gear... A kind-soul power-ran me through floor-30, but as it turns out, you need to defeat it... solo. People told me I had to buy the bundles to transition to Hell 2--that's what they did. I realized that even if I did pay and got strong enough to do Hell 2 content, the community had moved on almost exclusively to Hell 3 content. I could F2P-grind to P90, but I'd still be stuck at combat rating ~1000 unless I cough up money to upgrade my gems to clear Challenge Rift floor-30. Clearly a paywall and not a sustainable model for getting new membership. Fun game, but predatory.
Thanks for the honest review! I appreciate your always telling it like it is in these reviews, and your deep-dives are always entertaining and enlightening and useful. As a long time Diablo fan, it pains me to say I think going to avoid this title altogether given the uber-predatory practices it employs.
I find it extremely difficult to feel bad for people who regret playing this game. It's not like the GaaS aspect was hidden. You knew what you were getting into. Empathy is wasted on people that made their bed and now have to lay in it. I wrote this game off at "you guys have phones, right?" and I never looked back. I take great satisfaction and validation in knowing I was right. I can only hope you all have learned your lesson, but I doubt it. The longer it takes you to learn, the more this monetization garbage will plague you. If heavily monetized games failed, the practice would stop. You only have yourselves to blame. Did you expect a corporation to say "no thanks, we don't want the shirt off of your back, we have ethics."? 😂
Very fair review. On my part I uninstalled the game both on my PC and phone once I reached Paragon lvl 16. I ended up buying the Battle Pass and the super cheap dungeon offer but then I saw what the endgame was and it wasn't for me. Playing PVP and going against a Crusader (same class as me) paragon 8 compared to my paragon 16 he had over 15,000hp more than me and attacked me a few time and completely rolled me over. Then I saw the PVP was not being normalized, it was enough. Made me go back to D2R and looking forward to Diablo 4. Made me tempted to hop back in D3 next season, so I guess Blizzard plan somehow might have worked on me ? PS: Wyatt did not technically lie. He omitted the truth, which in my book is just as bad.
Pretty sure it was also a straight lie. He said 'no way to rank up gear using real money' but the Awaken system is a cash shop only bought item applied to the actual 12 slot gear items to give extra stats if you have a rank 10 legendary gem slotted into it. Also 'no way to acquire gear' has to go through some mental gymnastics to say being able to buy increased better loot and quanity chances in a MULTITUDE of ways isn't using money to get gear, just because the Exceptional triple stat Legendary Head is not directly in the shop.
Hate to break it to you, but a lot of the predatory monetization in Immoral will be brought over to D4. They did rehire Bobby after all, due to Immoral’s success.
@@lordchaa1598 I'm still high on copium but I doubt they'd risk so manny nickle and diming in a numbered of a flagship title. Cosmetic ok (even if I prefer it'd be acquired in-game) maybe some stash tabs like PoE but beyond that I really doubt it. I hope I'm not wrong, we'll see !
I'm so credulous. I saw an add for the free beta. Installed and ran around for a few hours having fun, and recommended the game to friends. A short while later the story fell apart and got really confused about what I was supposed to be doing. There were all these portals and interfaces and none of them seemed to have anything to do with a story or a quest or anything. Couldn't find any gems to socket into my items. Now here I am. I had never heard of "whales" or "battle pass Andy" or any of these things. I'm an old Diablo and Fallout player. You run around, collect stuff, level up and move through a story right? Now I understand why I became confused. I wasn't in a game. I was in a casino.
We all know what this was; a Diablo 3 remake specifically designed for the mobile market with monetizing the game 1000%. Why do people perpetuate this trash?
I love how this "game" has perfectly met the expectations everyone had when it was boo'd off stage at Blizzcon.
Absolutely! I remember that.
Pretty much. It also proved why the entire mobile gaming industry is disgusting and need to be smacked back into oblivion...
Actually. it has far exceeded our expectations. We knew what was coming after "its" presentation at Blizzcon but boy did they go ham to meet that "pride and accomplishment" (and then some).
Honestly, it's even worse. Chapeau Blizzard.
At least they were successful at something for a change.
I strongly disagree with letting Cheng get away with his "gems aren't gear" pedantry. No, gems are a type of gear by any reasonable definition. They are items you equip to provide all sorts of passive bonuses; QED. The fact that you put the gems into sockets in your items doesn't change the fundamental fact that they are also a type of gear.
I fully agree. Same goes for the crests: they are clear lootboxes, although Blizz tries to hide them behind rifts. That's why Belgium and the Netherlands already banned the game.
Saying gems aren't gear is like saying a belt isn't clothing.
If someone has better gems, you will get destroyed lmao. It’s gear and saying it isn’t, is just a brain dead take
Also since gems directly scale your "gear" stats they are in fact in many ways more important than the "gear" he is trying to hide behind not selling.
Upgrading a pair of pants in D:I might give a couple of stat points, upgrading a gem in those pants will scale stat points across all gear pieces and probably end up giving you at least 5-6 times more increase in power than upgrading a gear piece directly.
@@NATIK001 Exactly. I'm a bit surprised Cheng is playing this semantic game, because if the intent was not to have gems be "gear" they could have done a much better job hiding it. For example, they could have made them work similar to constellations in Genshin Impact, where you can unlock permanent passive bonuses by using what amounts to rare consumable items. The fact that you can upgrade gems and slot them in & out of your gear to give the specific bonuses you want in the moment makes it that much more apparent that gems are in fact a type of gear.
I cannot stress this enough. Remember that this was all intentional. They chose to make the grind long and unsatisfying to manipulate you into spending money. They chose to make the early game fun and fast paced to give you the dopamine rush so that they could rip it away. They are actively trying to make addicts out of people. They are not game developers and this is not a game. It's a scam with pretty colors and buttons.
Gaming anno 2022
Yup, blizzard literally has a job posting for a psychologist so that they can organize the real money shops in a way that people will pay more and more $
Who cares our options do not matter. Get over it and play retroarch instead
Good point. With no mans sky we were angry because the developer failed to develop the game they wanted to make.
On diablo immoral the reason we hate the game is because it is EXACTLY the game they wanted to develop.
Thanks captain obvious. I’m so glad people are here to keep reminding us how mobile F2P monetization transparently works.
I was standing in my kitchen making coffee and you caught me off guard with, "Horadric bullshit box." I started laughing so hysterically I think I scared my dog. Good show, Bellular.
As a German gaming site put it: Diablo Immortal as a Blizzard product is like the old high school friend who calls you after years to ...sell you some shady insurance policy. And you stand there dumbfounded, asking. "What... what happened to you? You used to be so cool."
This exact same thing happened to me just yesterday. He called me after 10 freaking years to sell a life insurance. Man you are spot on.
Bruh....this literally just happened to me with a college buddy...poor guy must be desperate
Perfectly spoken
it makes me fucking sick
GameStar now Internationally known?😅 deserved👍🏼
I did my own research into this, played to around paragon 50 as a wizard (f2p) and levelled another class to level 50 as I worked on the guide. I won't give that link (which would be tacky) but there's a few points and links I will share that Bellular haven't really covered and when you start to understand...
First off, Elder rifts are the game's loot box. A glorified slot machine. Didn't fool Belgium and Netherlands, but the rest of the world let it slide. (well, maybe not China :D :D :D Have to see.)
If you haven’t figured it out already, the end boss in Elder rifts is irrelevant, as are all trash mobs before it. The Elder rift is a loot box, pure and simple. Sure, it is disguised, but it’s a loot box all the same. You are paying before the run to pre-load the ‘wins’. If you fail the 'rift' you get your crests return to try again. Kind of them.
Using the slot machine analogy, you put the coins in the slot (the crests - bought with orbs, bought for cash - into the slots) and you pull the handle (run the rift). The casino (Blizzard) guarantees you ‘something’, even if it’s only one cherry (1-star legendary), but that row of bells or 777 (2/5-star or better), boy are you gonna need a much bigger bag of tokens!
Any claim by Blizzard and Wyatt Cheung that the orbs are not ‘gear’, that’s it’s ‘misinformation’, that the game is not 100% pay-to-win are just PR lies.
*(To max a character you will need over 5,000 such legendary orbs in all)
As you can see, orbs are important to the game. They are epically legendary in terms of Activision’s profits.
And Blizzard will cripple anything and everything that gets in the way of their profits, no matter what.
...
What? 5,000 ?/5 gems to max your character? No way. That's BS.
Well, I'm not about to try but a few respected sites have, like Wowhead. To be honest their description is so convoluted that I struggled to follow it, but I got a figure of around 48 copies of the gem you want plus 105 more to salvage so 153 2/5-star gems to get to your first 5/5 level 10 gem (I think). As I say, in made my head hurt even trying.
www.wowhead.com/diablo-immortal/guides/legendary-gems-upgrading-ranks-gem-power
Luckily another well known site (Maxroll) had prepared a tldr; version, which arrive at 73 dupes and 4,450 gem power (so 213 2/5-star gems)
That just gets you to first base and you are down about £15,000 to £20,000 by now.
Then you want the other 5 gems.
Then you want the dohicky up ascend and open up the gem (which Bellular and others have touched up slightly).
Hidden inside this are slots for 4 more legendary gems, each of which wants levelling up. Oh, and by the way, these are specific gems, and they are locked. You have to level up each gem to find out what the next one is. Those 3,200 1-star gems you just destroyed to get the first gem to level 10, you kind of needed them. Better start swiping again.
So, for a fully pimped toon, you are looking at needing up to 6,390 legendary gems, a quarter of which much be specific dupes.
immortal.maxroll.gg/resources/gems
...
Finally, I found a 'Diablo Immortal Elder Rift generator' to calculate the cost of that gem you want!
Not the same, but before I found this I did try it with spreadsheets and random number generators. This is quicker, less maths, more fun. Just set yourself a goal like 'get my first 2/5 Bile gem' or 'get my first 5/5 Blood-soaked jade' and have at it.
For the BiS Blood-soaked Jade, using the generator, it cost $21,800. I got it cheap, given the odds. The second simulation cost $86,975. Mostly ‘Chip of Stoned Flesh’ dropped, but I did see 6 ‘Seeping Bile’. In all, I had 30 5/5 by the time I got the drop I wanted, along with 32,429 1 and 2-star gems. Great value, eh!
dimi777.github.io/diablo-rift-simulator/
.
What a great, comprehensive comment. Thanks!
Who the fuck has BOTH the money AND the time for imaginary stuff?!
Amazing comment bro!
Let's cut the BS. Wyatt is a liar and Blizzard knows this isn't a game, it's just a donation box for fools with more money than sense. Call a spade a spade.
It's a Konami Pachinko machine with a Blizzard coat of paint. "Don't you guys like Pachinko Parlours??"
@@Khotetsu the game is pretty good.
@@swoldierc1972 doesn't matter if the game is good if it's monetized this heavily and you will never reach full character potential or get competitive in multiplayer without paying thousands. No one is saying the gameplay isn't fun. That's not the point
100% agree, Owlchemist.
@@swoldierc1972 *mini-game
What I'm most upset about is that so many people knowingly paid thousands of dollars to play scuffed Diablo 3 endgame. Streamers in particular. How dare you support these business practices to this extent and thus enable them in the future like this, when even the game itself is nothing special? There was no big secret to uncover, no veiled truth to unearth - everyone knew from day 1 that it was a shameless pyramid scheme yet you willingly poured fuel on its engine. Gaming as a whole is worse for this idiotic stunt and it's not just on Blizzard.
Sadly, they get their money back and then some more with their streams. We all saw how much Asmongold spent on Lost Ark and he obviously got it all back with the streams and youtube channels. Quin69 spent nearly 20k on Immortal yet he definetly made more with his clips like the one where he "accidentally" bought the wrong gems.
Streamers don't care if they are normalizing these predatory practices on their viewers. They only care to get views on their streams to gain money even if it means spending some pocket change (because that's what that much money is for them).
@@lerekt7818 The viewers do enable the streamer but ultimately it is the streamer who decides on the content streamed. Somebody who subbed to Asmongold three weeks prior to Diablo probably didn't know what they would end up paying for.
Once again, one cannot help but feel 'impressed' by this atrocity. So much research, psychological science and whatnot went into the creation of this avaricious behemoth, this whale bait of a game, in order to create the ultimate money vacuum. Never before has there been this much planing and scheming to create a 'perfect' product. Just imagine - the things such power could achieve if the people behind it intended or were allowed to use it for actual entertainment, escapism and just one hell of a good time. Truly, this is the antithesis of what gaming is supposed to be.
If nothing else, it will make for compelling research into the greed and manipulation of the industry . It will be seen as a case study, mentioned in features by the Wall Street journal. In the financial times, there will probably be academic papers about it etc.
Governments have spent huge amounts of money and thrown vast numbers of G men to cracking organized crime that made less then these games and were actually less psychologically, if not morally, shady.
This is just unregulated organized crime with a veneer of legality hiding behind the ‘video game’ Defense field.
I have noticed this happening in almost every market. This is post-capitalism. Everything feels like a scam these days. Corporations have an incentive to sell a bad product and making people believe it's good over selling a product that's actually good. Videogame industry is a clear as day example of why capitalism just ruins shit. When profits are more important than putting out a quality product they have to either scam people or reduce quality. Videogames used to be so good in the old days.
So I'm getting video recommendations from Catholic priests saying how video games are a path to evil. (The algorithm is pretty nuts sometimes.) Anyway, this game proves that, in some cases, it is true.
I do not believe they did any research here. I know they hired the experience from the gambling industry. The math models are the same, the techniques are the same. The differences are the lack of regulations and the target audience. There are well tested models which they are following.
The "game developers" that made this have no honor. They actively damage the whole medium. It's disgusting.
I have a question for Wyatt Chang and the people responsible for this travesty.
"Do you guys not have morals?"
"You ALL have morals, right?"
Yeah, they should have just called the game "Diablo Immoral"
Look on the bright side, in the future, any game that has Wyatt's name on I will avoid like the plague.
when money is involved, why do you ask?
pffft morals can't pay for the cosby suite
I have ground my way up to Level 60 Paragon 55 totally as a free to play player. (Ironically, I tried to purchase a low cost bundle to get me through one of the level locked stages of the plot, but Blizzard's commerce engine kept crashing.) I'm going to stop play now as all that's left is griding to rank up gems and collect gearsets. As Bellular Gaming says, I can't be competitive with paying players in any of the PVP arenas because there's such a disparity in power levels.
Normally I'm a "Don't yell at the devs yell at the publisher." But that has a limit to where it stops being "they are just doing what they are told" and becomes a situation where if you had any integrity you wouldn't be in this situation to begin with.
But the devs and the publishers are that same here, you need to accept that Blizzard has been gone for a decade now, there is no functional difference between Activision, Blizzard, and Activision-Blizzard.
F*ck blizzard
@@Sevaria and this is even more deepened by the fact that it was NetEase who completely developed the game ... Remember in the first hours after the release ... There wasnt even Blizzard in the opening screen ... Just NetEase
Do you have the integrity to quit your job right now?
and if you don't do it, you get fired and someone else gets hired to do it instead
18:34
i just noticed something, they have a "don't ask again today" button, when the price for opening each chest gradually increases, so if a player decides to click it because he just assumes "oh, they just cost 100 platinum", then they will quickly have all of their currency drained after they open a bunch more chests
This game is state of the art in extracting money from you. Every psychological trick to hook and extract money of you is applied. Blizzard ceos are probably proud that they created this "masterpiece"
No, Blizzard CEOs are happy they have something to distract from their sexual abuse and mistreatment allegations
And they have the whales to thank for the millions of dollars blizzard got. Both are equally disgusting
@@LuriTV hahaha youll still buy their products sheep
@@LuriTV Do you really think they actually gice a crap? Just another storm in the teapot and as especially gamers have shown time and again, they nag and bitch and moan and then continue to shovel their money into the jaws of the very same companies they were just bitching about.
Mobile game companies were the first who actually hired professional psychiatrists and psychologists in order to actively increase the addiction potential of their games and you can bet that Blizzard has a lot of them on the payroll. It is utterly and completely disgusting. I remember a record a journalist secretly made more than 10 years ago during a conference of mobile game makers and one of them proudly reported how they had increased the addiction potential of their products and how he 'would not allow _his_ children to touch this with a 10 feet pole'.
Those people are the scum of the earth and gamers keep rewarding them for that.
My interest in Diablo IV was already tenuous, given everything that we've learned about Blizzard in the last 4 years. Seeing the debacle of D: Immortal didn't tip the scale- that point has long since passed- but it did drain away the last drop of confidence I had.
Diablo was my favorite Blizz property, and sparked my interest in ARPGs. To look at news of D4 (including Bellular's own coverage) and feel nothing at all is so deeply WEIRD; it feels like I really should feel SOMETHING, even if it's sadness or anger, or even seething distrust. It's just gone now.
My interest in the Diablo franchise dropped when the devs for D2 left. (That was before WoW was even released.)
It was killed entirely when D3 released.
Mind I keep hoping something will rekindle such interest. Which is why I keep looking at content for the franchise.
But nothing is indicating that it will ever improve.
Lmao, you may have lost interest but the moment theny announce 4, all will be forgiven and you will all go back to being hyped and sucking blizzards balls.
All this crap made me already make the decision to not touch Diablo 4 anyway, but I've just learned that it won't even have a real SP mode, let alone campaign. I don't care about PvP, I don't care about MP, I do play a bit co-op every now and then and that was it. I was always more interested in a solid SP experience. I am fully aware how important MP etc is for most gamers, but the old Diablo games worked perfectly fine with an SP mode integrated and there is zero reason to give up on it.
That is, of course, if you are not gung ho to turn this whole shitshow into a 'life service'.
@@Furzkampfbomber games with single player modes *are* the most successful, in terms of consistent long-term playerbases.
This is why games like Diablo, Diablo 2, Warcraft, Starcraft, CoD and Halo have lasted so long and become so iconic in gaming culture. It is why franchises like Legend if Zelds, Mario Bros, Pokémon and Sonic are so well known and continue to sell, even outperforming most other franchises. It is why those games and franchises have such staying power, and part of why they have become staples of popular culture.
Don't misunderstand, multiplayer games can make massive profits, but that alone doesn't give those games staying power, it doesn't retain players in the long-term. It doesn't usually turn them into franchises or cultural phenomena.
@@nobodyshome6792 That is very interesting to read, I actually was under a very different impression. Maybe that is because it's an intrinsic part of everything MP that people are talking more about it and because it's more social by nature.
Especially when looking at the Halo or Diablo games, it is easy to come to the belief that the SP part is more of an entrance point, an elongated tutorial for the MP part. To be fair, I can't say _anything_ about the Mario or Pokemon games, apart from the more... fleeting impressions I have from them.
I was going to ask for your explanation of the phenomenon you describe, but could this already be the, or at least part of an explanation? That a good SP part is what makes people interested in what the MP part might have to offer?
Or, looking at the time aspect, that people might be more willing to give a 10 year old SP game a try than a relatively new MP only game and then get hooked and interested, especially when seeing that game X still has a very active MP community? Ot that they come back to a game they feel nostalgic about after having played the SP part a decade or so ago and then get hooked by the MP part they never played back then?
Anyway, thanks for answer and info!
EDIT: I was just thinking about Pokemon, Zelda and many of the other games you have mentioned and in combination with the time factor, how I see/perceive those games might support at least the 'npstalgia' thesis, although in some kind of reverse way. Because it is teaching me how important of a factor nostalgia actually is.
I grew up in the GDR, consoles or computer games were not a thing until the wall fell. When that happend, I was way too old for the Mario games, I was jumping right to the C64, then the Amiga 500 and then switched to PC. I actually started my 'consolero career' when I was already 30 or so and although I was and am catching up to a lot of franchises etc, there are some that are massively popular while I could not be bothered less.
On the other hand, there are a lot of franchises connected to the Commodore era that I feel strongly connected to and I would definitely be willing to give anything knew based on _those_ a try way more readily than anything else. So either way, SP nostalgia is surely an important part of this phenomenon.
After he started bring up the 3rd currency, I was annoyed. After the 5th, I was lost, confused and disgusted. After what felt like the 12th, I was baffled that this game hasn't been pulled yet for predatory practices.
Game is illegal in belgium and netherlands for predatory transactions.
They want to separate your money y dwindling it down to many currency it's a tactic they learned by speaking with their psychologists it's really disgusting.
22-23 currancies to be exaxt
Wow, it's like they specifically tried to put every sneaky tactic they could find into the game's monetization. Heck there could be even more in there at the level of people spending 50k on it that we don't know about.
It's impressive, if also deeply disturbing. They must really consider their customers to be more wallets than humans to act like this.
They give a fuck about poor customers. Why should they if there's rich af people that just have to be baited?
What deeply worries me more that a rich as fuck small minority dictates these days what's on the menu.
Honestly I feel I'm done with Blizzard completely. There was some hope that after all the backlash they would learn from their mistakes but here they prove that we are closer to cattle on a farm to them than people who play games. The fact that they even let this release even remotely close to this state and didn't change things right out the gate is absurd in the extreme. I'm not even going to give Dragonflight a chance. Even if it is great it is likely going to be a lure so that they can snatch away more money from people down the line. Blizzard as we remember it is long dead and I doubt we will ever see a great game come from it now without deliberate caveats. It was a great run, but this isn't the Blizzard any of us remember, and I doubt it ever will be again. Maybe Microsoft can turn things around with a fresh new team, but beyond that I feel the Blizzard we love is just a fond memory now. Maybe it's time to let it go and turn our love towards something that will actually love us back.
Blizz we all loved died 2010.
took you this long to be done with Blizzard. No matter, welcome to the club. I've been in it for years.
I got optimistic for a minute with D2R but then I remembered how much better PoD and PD2 are and they did that with donations and passion.
@@scottmune4484 so you're just here to watch blizzard burn? Same bro!
thats how i feel. see you in wrath and dragonflight though
Every time I hear about Diablo Immortal's machinations, it makes me want to take a shower. Just imagining the psychopaths and narcissists sitting around coming up with these monitization systems, identifying what works in other games so they could create their own versions here, absolutely chilling and disgusting. This form of game monitization is an enemy to humanity.
you think that's bad wait until you hear about for-profit healthcare
@@sloaneglover1026 Taking the "Don't complain about your life, there are starving children in Africa" approach?
This is a discussion about gaming.
@@Hotshot2k4 it's a discussion about corrupt corporations run by psychopaths and narcissists who don't care about the well-being of others. Sorry if I triggered your medical trauma.
to find who is causing all this trouble and strife, go to their wiki and check 'early life'
Small addendum to legendary gems on the market - Blizzard, in their mercy, allows free players to craft legendary gems in Westmarch. Those are unbound too and therefore sellable. "Technically" one can craft a 5 star legendary gem, provided they farmed essence leftovers from rifts for about two weeks (because they have a weekly cap ofc) - but chances of actually getting that are NOT disclosed. I did it once, got a crappy one star. So that might as well be actually no chance or far less than actually getting a 5-star from a paid crest. And remember - this is a single dice roll every two weeks or more.
Thank you so much Blizzard.
I'm not sure sure how accurate those crafting chances were, but i've seen a list of the chances of crafting random legendary 5stars gems
2*= 3.375%
3*= 0.90%
4*= 0.18%
5*= 0.045%
Good luck on anyone wishing to get one that way.
@@bmack1708 two people in my clan have gotten 5 stars that way lol. Super rare
@@mr.voidroy6869 some i know won the lottery lol, Super rare.
@@mr.voidroy6869 you're actually still playing this game? Yikes
Also 1 legendary crest per month. Whales rolling hundreds in one hr.
I can't believe how far they went. They should have tested the waters more, ease the audience into the P2W.
Or.. they shouldn't taint existing PC IPs with P2W. That's another option :)
For me I lost interest at 60 paragon 10. As a free to play player you hit this loop where you literally need to dedicate multiple times throughout the day; getting blessings at 3pm, vault raids 4pm, hilt vendor resets, and battlegrounds times. Then find the time to also do your challenge rifts, bounties and contracts, while collecting essence. Then finally making progress on the battle pass to make sure you have enough hilts to buy the next store reset. Also I would just play PVP for the dailies and be fodder for swipers. All in all I would have to drop 4+ hours a day on a MOBILE game to efficiently progress my character. And if I missed any of that because of IRL stuff; I felt like shit. Gj Blizz, you made me walk away from this game faster than BF2042 and Halo infinite.
D4 choose a class:
Barbarian, Monk, Lowborn, Highborn (unlocked in special edition), [megawhale] (unlocked by preorder the special premium collectors edition, upgrading store to lvl 50 or backer status Consierge).
The single thing, I find the most shocking is the sheer amount of fanboys, that stand 200% behind Blizzard even now. Defending how they get taken advantage of. It's a lost cause. As long as these guys exist, it will get worse.
I hope the guys at least own shares like me so it’s justified. Otherwise it’s sad.
@@MoonShadeStuff this whale bought stock so he doesn't feel as bad when he wastes money and makes everything worse for the rest of us awwwwwwww
I haven't spent a dime on game and top 25 crusader on a full server at level 60/70 and have several 12+ kill bg games including a 19-0 on high ranks , majority of players haven't spent a dime and you can easily tell and everyone is enjoying the game and more and more people are joining daily .
Hearthstone mobile is far more p2w in actuality.
The only "paywall" is the awakening stone and as far as whales and pvp as people hit Hell 2 almost all battlegrounds fights are people in groups and alot of stunlock teams that negate any amount spent as even at absolute current maximum (there actually IS NOT a cap as gear scales forever) 3 people can stunlock you for 25 seconds bare minimum with no skill and at that point even Bellular's bad demonhunter will kill your 100k character.
Mobile game veterans also understand everytime new content is added , it devalues all the money you spent outside of things like cosmetics and battlepasses (see note 2)
Most importantly there is one constant in mobile gaming industry for over a decade , Whales get bored and leave , over 90% will leave often leaving all the longstanding players to surpass them until they whale again .
Note 2: PubG Mobile is top revenue of all games last few years on nothing but cosmetics and battlepasses which make up over 80% of spending in mobile gaming worldwide and whales aren't a major source of income, what makes more money 3 million battlepasses (15 mil) or 100 100k whales (10m) and the 15m is monthly vs whale is one big spend so after 10 months its 12 million for whales vs 150 million from "Battlepass Andy"
This is why mobile gamers sound "shilly" we know how industry runs , you won't find the actual info on social media or platforms 🤣🤣🤣 Financial and Business and industry sources give the actual numbers nobody on UA-cam even bothers to lookup and to us 1.2 Billion gamers+ , people like Bellular look like a fool who hasn't done any research or understand gaming industry at all .
Who cares. Just let the fanboys play the game while sane humans leaves and find a better game.
There should be an in game leaderboard that shows whose spent the most money. Because that’s honestly all that matters anymore.
From "what, do you guys not have phones?" to "what, do you guys not have seven-figure salaries?"
Some ppl say they have no food lets look @ their 2000 dollar phones...
@@adamtajhassam9188 *laughs in Z Fold 3*
had to cash in my sons college fund money, but now im an immortal pro!
You didnt go over charms. It costs 500 platnium to extract a rank 5 charm into a skill stone. If there is only one skill for your class in that skill stone, you are basically rolling a 20% chance to get the skill you want added onto your main charm. The skill stone is consumed in this process. The skill stones at auction average 1k- 2.5k platnium, your basically paying to roll for a perfect 5/5 skill charm. Idk if duplicate skills on a skill stone will affect the rng but usually the good charms arent sold due to the 2.5k platnium cost. If you have a 3/5 charm for your class thats good, you dont sell it. 2.5k platnium is too low of a price for the rarity and cost it takes to get a good charm. The kicker is that these charm skills give like 2% buff to each skill. To get a 5/5 skilled charm for your class that has good skills is...difficult to obtain.
When it is all said and done, is anyone really surprised? Was diablo immortal ever going to be anything else? Why on gods green earth would Blizzard want a mobile diablo? To sell costumes? Raise your hand if you really believed that.
Look, no one was saying they can't monetize the game. Its the manner in which it is monetized that's egregious. Even the myriad of mobile games I've played don't do all things immortal does. Many mobile devs will adapt one or 2 types into their monetization method but blizzard took the book on monetizing and put every single strategy in.
The issue isnt tbe money. It's that there are systems in this game that you literally cannot interact with without a credit card.
@@maxsayo Well said.
Do you guys not have phones?
I'm most surprised that so many YT talking heads were surprised that DI was going to be anything other than another freemium cash grab.
I got a whole new respect for you and you've earned another fan. Keep it up bellular. Why donate to a streamer knowing full well your money is going straight to a loot box. You? You deserve the love.
Blizzard went from "Do you guys not have phones?" to "Do you guys not have trust funds?" real quick.
The paywall really hits at Hell II. Thats when your gear score comes into its own and can only be countered with your wallet.
I uninstalled at Paragon lvl 38. Completed the battle pass and did 11 bonus levels (for paltry rewards). The basic game loop consists of doing your dailys, making sure to make the one you're working on "featured" so you get more BP, because at this point you're chasing BP as completing a battle pass level is the only way of gaining a decent amount of XP. Once you've done your bounties and Pokemon hunt, its down to grinding dungeons on the off chance you might get a set piece. This is the F2P loop, and it's incredibly boring, even by Diablo standards.
Another thing worth noting is that the Pokemon (sorry, "Bestiary") quests used to give out legendries like confetti prior to hitting lvl 60, once you start hitting the Paragon lvls that dries up straight away. I haven't done any data mining, but just based on anecdotal evidence alone its obvious that the loot tables are skewed.
You can hit an 1,100 combat rating fairly easily, which is the first big milestone. After that, unless you're spending money, it slows down to a crawl.
And lets not even talk about PvP.
I am stuck at 1022 for forever (Paragon 30) maybe I am unlucky but I don't really see a way to increase my power without money. Damn I feel like a fool for saying why back at blizzcon: "Not sure how I feel about it but I will give it a chance maybe it is good."
Summed up brilliantly. Fully agree with this.
Paragon 52 1700 cr not a penny spent
@@WyrmsouI I work away a lot because of my work so it’s pretty convenient for me, I’m not a snowflake that has an issue with a game I have not played, pretty much every mmo and new games have pay to win/progress features if that includes people paying for RWT and so on
I am f2p player now at paragon 54 with Cr around 1650. Hell 2 is really piece of cake. Beat lassal hardest setting. I was hoping it unlocks the next hellquery boss, but it didn’t, I guess they haven’t implement the next boss yet. This game is easily leveling up and get better legendary for higher Cr. I didn’t spend 1 cent, I love this game. It is very good to release stress by killing a lot of mobs and randomly get good gear. It is like a slot machine, fun to play and get good rewards, and it is all free!
Not mention it gives tons of hilts which you can buy all the crests everyday. In turn you get tons of runes which you can get random 1, 2 or 5 star gems just like legendary crest. I have all 2 star legendary gems at level 2, working on getting them to level 3, all for free.
Then I will buy 2/5 gem from the market using platinum and upgrade those. It is fun to see my character become stronger slowly. That is Diablo experience.
Players deserve what they get by playing and supporting these kind of games
One thing I notice about all the DI coverage... a lot of menus. I rarely see gameplay, or see discussion of it. I don't know how accurate it is, but all the metagaming stat play looks like a pain to deal even without the mtx aspects. I tried it at Blizzcon and had no further interest in it despite it being relatively fun at the time, but also it was a streamlined demo with just gameplay and no gearing systems laid on top.
In east asia, we call these games 'pig farms'. There are hundreds made just like this one, and Netease is one of the biggest companies behind them. Most people are embarassed to admit they play these types of games because everyone knows they are just a different form of gambling. I know a guy who worked a service job but spent thousands in USD every month on these games.
If this is beating a dead horse then I believe there should be an extinction level-sized crater where the horse used to be. I absolutely love content shitting on Diablo Immoral lol, keep these coming
Good call - next character is a dead horse, or cow :)))
@Reliable Iceberg I am well aware of this. We just aren't making enough noise, so craters are a necessity ;)
Got to paragon 34 and quit like 6 days ago. Once I got to Hell 2 there was a huge wall preventing me from getting any stronger and any power I did receive was miniscule.
Watching some of my favorite D2 NPCs be paraded around to promote the cash shop in the main story is what made me quit before the free hit was even done. Charsi, I forgive you - it wasn't your fault.
Yeah, at that point I just felt being actively mocked. Like "Loool, you sucker, come, here's the character you're nostalgic about, now give us money, you looser".
Remember when you paid a flat fee for a mobile game and could just play it as much as you wanted until you canned the game… those were good days…
This is genuinely insane. Everything I've seen of this game makes me think it looks like a simplified D3. Only you can pay 10k in it, for some reason. I don't get the appeal. Totally free, free with minimal microtransactions, ok, if you really want to fiddle with something on a train or a waiting room... I do NOT get why so many people are sucked into this manipulative hellhole.
you can pay 100k for some reason lol
I think at that point, they'd be better off spending it on therapy.
The same is designed for gambling addicts, which is sad
every time I see a D:immortal video I start feeling sick to my stomach. Just stopped playing everything Blizzard does.
Cause its so manipulative?
I’d like to revive a term, the “box price”. I’d like to see the box price listed along side the retail price. So what’s the difference? The retail price is same as what it’s always been what you pay when you buy, where as the box price is what you’ll have to pay to get everything promised in the box including everything in the loot boxes. Allow western consumers to make an informed decision at point of purchase!
I actively want this game to fail. I don't want this crap to infect other games that could have been good, but where the publishers look at this, see players will play it anyways, and demand this style of monetization get crammed in to everything just like loot boxes. I'm normally of the opinion that people should just play what they want, but this sickens me and anybody supporting it is actively taking part in making our gaming hobby worse.
It's like if McDonald's started cutting their burgers with feces, and people kept eating there anyways. The pricey premium burgers are still pure beef, but the value menu is literal shit and people are eating it up because they like the fries. They're now making more money and getting away with it, so the competitors are going to follow suit.
Unfortunately it’s far too late. The success of Genshin Impact showed all of the things you’re worried about would sell.
Yeahhh they actually have a pretty decent rating on playstore..seems only the more serious gamers care.
And streamers already made an example by dumping tens of thousands on the game for shock value...
People are dumb, we are screwed.
@@skygradient6248 I mostly play indie games these days, aside from some major releases that I actually have faith in (From, Guerilla, stuff produced under Yoshi P but not SE as a whole). Unfortunately indie studios don't get control of major IP franchises, and it's painful to see stuff I've loved since childhood become these twisted perversions. I'd like to play a new Star Wars-themed game without worrying about getting a lightsaber up the ass while they rummage through my wallet.
Thanks for keeping bringing attention to this. I don't think the attention does much to deter terminally addicted blizzard fans tbh but at least good people are trying to fight this. If we can keep at least some people from falling into this trap and losing their money then it's worth it.
I recently just picked up Diablo 2 Ressurected on the Switch, which is the only Diablo mobile experience I will allow in my home.
d2 on switch?? I'm sold
If the aim of the PVP system was to match players with comparable gear against each other they could very easily do so directly, without first pitting the minnows against the sharks and whales. They could have separate classes of competition within which similarly-geared players could compete on a more or less equal footing.
Instead, the fact that whales get to farm f2p players until they reach a high enough rank is a feature of the system. Dunking on the peasants is the reward for swiping.
And vice versa, getting shit on by whales is the "punishment" for f2p. If they don't want to be shit on, they're left with 2 options: spend or quit.
when the game was announced to critical boos, you only thought it was going to have basic levels of pay to win bullfuckery. only to find out years later that Morpheus was going to take you even further than you could have possibly imagined down that particular rabbit hole.
About 10 days ago i hit the level wall. All i wanted to do was play through the storyline once. But here i sit gated at level 44 needing lvl 46 to see next bit of story.
I am out. The bounties that i need to grind to unlock the next bit of story are basically "Kill 10 Rats" quests that Everquest bored me with over 20 years ago.
I no lifed my way to paragon 12. I spent 8 dollars, BP and second dungeon bundle. I was top 10 in pvp top 30 in challenge rifts. Then I hit a wall. And it was a insane wall. The only way over the wall was pay cash.
A major problem (for the consumer) with this particular method of generating revenue is that the corporation has found a way to muffle the consumer's voice in the back and forth dialogue you mention at the end of the video. In a normal transaction, the customer trades their money for something of value, either a product or a skill, and the person providing said product or skill is incentivized to ensure their product or skill is of good value because otherwise the customer walks away from the trade. But the conman knows he doesn't have to provide a product or skill of good value as long as he can dupe a few customers into paying so much more for the scam that the loss of the rest of the customers doesn't matter. You can't vote with your wallet against a product like D:I, because the conmen at Blizzard aren't interested in delivering a good product in fair trade, they are interested in fleecing as much cash as possible from a small subset of rubes. As long as they pull in enough cash from the whales, the opinions and lack of business from everybody else is entirely irrelevant.
These are the instances where the consumer needs to raise a stink. Voting with your wallet has zero impact here, best you can hope for is the destruction of Blizzard's reputation as a respectable entity.
With everything I have seen with immortal, I am not getting D4 when it is released. It’s sad! I have played Diablo since the first game. I am just tired of micro transactions in full priced games. I cannot trust that those games are not rigged to entice you to buy micro transactions cosmetic or not.
Yes you will. Just like the rest of us.
@@swoldierc1972 i have stopped pre-ordering for exactly this reason. To many games thinking they can get away with this shit.
I have no interest at all. I bought d2r so that will be the last Blizzard will get any money from me lol. You only need d2 imo.
Nice one Bell, a fair review of this accurate representation of what it looks like when hell spills out into our world.
I don't believe their words, for they ring hollow as a rotten log. Immortal has destroyed their shell of an old image and revealed the parasite thats rotted them from the inside out.
I played through the game exactly once, without paying anything. Story progress was ok, but the further I got, the more annoying all the adds became. Furthermore, the game is overloaded with weird upgrading systems, which got me lost quite fast - battle pass, gems, horadric stuff... and every aspect wants it's share of your money.
Sunken Cost Fallacy. Essentially they want to increase ads the more invested you've become into the game.
If you are still a Blizzard consumer and aren't worried how Diablo Immortal will be impacting things like D4 or WoW Dragonflight moving forward, you are living in a bubble/are willfully ignorant. Honestly, Bellular is too generous when he believes the D4 team is honest in their attempts to try to pitch the game as a genuine game. D4 has a cash shop, they aren't even hiding it now; previous Diablo games didn't even have cash shops. With all of the lies Blizzard has slung your way for years now, to earnestly believe them at this point is borderline insanity. What trends have they honestly displayed to show they've changed? None. They have, however, consistently showed, across all their IPs, that they love to say one thing and then show that in technicalities and legalities later that they were correct, but actually it was something else later. No borrowed power in Dragonflight? Well, technically Ion actually said they only wanted to move away from it and actually said he never envisioned the game would never 100% move away from it; he never gave exact finite parameters on how much borrowed power would be removed in Dragonflight. Blizzard as a whole, regardless of the team is utterly despicable. You can enjoy a game, nobody can take away the fun you enjoy when you play a game, but it does not change the fact that this entire company has 100% failed in it's capacity to treat it's consumers well; they have abused you all whether you admit it or not. It's just sad so many people fail to recognize it across the board.
I just knew as soon as they announced this game however many years ago, what was going to happen. And it ended up being worse than I thought, and I've completely lost my love for the franchise.
Blizzard lost that spark they had back when they made fun games just to make fun games. Now everything is all about the monetization. It's sad really.
Thank you so much for your integrity, as always. I understand it can be tough calling out a company/game for their bullshit and is never easy, but I really appreciate the coverage you’ve put into the clusterfuck that is Immortal. Seeing this really scares me for what companies will have built in the metaverse or whatever it’s called since Facebook owns that now. I heard on NPR virtual real estate is already a thing, I think I heard seven figures for the space to open a Samsung store in the Korean metaverse.
I thought it was mediocre enough, until level 30 when it went from mediocre to just garbage when you hit the pay us more money XP wall.
Thank you for what you are doing, keep up the good work. You are doing an amazing job!
I just uninstalled it, too. Level 35 and your video made the further direction clear. Thanks for saving me the time!
Imagine teams of people meeting up to discuss the most efficient way to rip you off.
It's called marketing.
@@dvk1627 Marketing serves a different purpose, we're talking development here.
@@raulm.1556 Yes you are so fucking right, it's not like you have R&D in marketing too ...
As other content creators pointed out: Noone ever said d4 will Only have cosmetic items in the cash shop. They said it will be "based around cosmetic items"...which probably just means in d4 the skins will be giving you the combat rating or something... Not a game.
Diablo Immortal alpha was an amazing game just like D4 seems to be. Won't stop the execs from over ruling the devs destroying the game. D4 devs claim mean nothing because in the end they control nothing.
I can just see the blizzard team sitting around their table having this exact same conversation but thinking it's all an amazing idea
Keep fighting the good fight for the rest of us Bellular and team!
Oh looking forward to your game release! I need it NOW!
When the rift opens and your face appears in the middle lol /chefs kiss
Nice touch & great video thank you
Thank you for putting up with this BS to inform us all of Blizzards garbage. Much appreciated. Found your channel due to immortal content. Never actually downloaded the game, thank god.
Imagine if they just charged €20 for the game and you got the full game with no tricks, no timelocks, no micropayments. Just the game. They'd still make hundreds of millions of dollars easily without people feeling angry and mad.
My initial reaction that turned me immediately off was how the first enemies that you swung on were a lot more spongy than any other action RPG I have ever played. Knowing that this was the type of game where power was attached to money this initial bullet spongy high HP pool enemy. Was a very strong indicator of what was to come. Basically it didn't feel like an action RPG it felt like a cash crap and this was only from the first dozen monsters but maybe it's just me
The first enemies suicide themselves....they explode at your sight. Is weird AF
I still cant access the shop lol. Ever since launch I press the shop button and boom: error code 10200283
I hope you got to level 60. It helps to understand just how bad the paragon system is.
I can't say enough thanks to all streamers who played this clusterF of a cash grab.
Watching Asmon, Rich, Quin and many more payers show how horrible DI is, was an eye opening experience.
Not to mention people who play mobile games defend it.
Not one of them can answer, why pay to win/ progress is so acceptable to them. Answer is always, it's a mobile game, that's how it is and should be...😳
And as a bonus point, median income in China is around 400€. If you are able to afford buying stuff to progress 100€/$ in mobile game and not feel the financial hit, fine.
But how can one defend costs like these and say that they aren't predatory.
With psychological manipulation going on this scale, how is that OK?🤯
I'm just so happy that they are blocked from entering that golden Chinese market.
If it's stopped even for a short while, GREAT.
I play mobile games and DI is the scummiest greediest most bullsh*t piece of garbage I have ever seen. The fact that even China thinks this "game" is going too far should be telling enough. I curse the day in-game monetization became a thing and ruined the landscape for decades.
Best review and honest truth about the game thus far 👌 👍 👏 🙌 💯
I am playing it at the moment. It is very interesting how I still feel the compulsion to spend money, even though I am very well aware of the psychological tricks used there.
It is a relief to see how EU started to handle loot box and gacha designs thanks to horrible cash grabs reskinned as games like this thing is.
Hopefully in 5-6 years you won't be able to even publish "games" like these in EU.
I've played mobile rpg games for some time, Tales of Wind and Sprite Fantasia were only two ones that stood out well. Although Tales of Wind being more p2w in terms of getting more runs for a day, and Sprite Fantasia being lot less popular in general in EU. At least those two games (idk about Tales of Wind 100%), but once you've built your own island level high enough, you can cook buff food of different options, even increased drop rate food up to 5%. In Sprite Fantasia there is also pet skill that increases drop rate up to 5-7%, and divination gives drop rate % from 0-20 depending how lucky you are.
It surprises me though why did they choose to force players to pay for loot to be better, when you could instead make drop rate function more practical in midgame by additional upgrades you can improve over time f2p, giving more motivation to keep playing and forming functioning teams, guilds and set up sentimental anchors for players to pay for support of others for e.x.
They did fail the outcome of the rpg in this entirely, the lack of story, however ridiculous it could've been. Sprite Fantasia storyline is for example almost fully filled with jokes, memes and irony. Diablo Immortal is like lovehate child from any general RPG p2w oriented game and Dante's Inferno. Quite sad combination in fact.
I do find this whole thing odd. I've played Diablo 3 for ages, and as far as I can see from Imortal, it is a basic copy and paste of D3. In which case, if you like the gameplay you see in Imortal, why don't you just buy D3? Currently D3 (with Reaper of Souls) is often found on sale for the same price, if not cheaper, than a single 10 crest run in Immortal. Bonkers.
In fact watching the Immortal game play gave me nostalgia pangs for D3, so I just booted up D3, had the same experience, and didn't have to pay a penny more.
You had a better experience, actually. Build and skill options are more limited in DI, and beyond the novelty of controlling an ARPG character on a mobile device and a few memorable spectacle moments in a couple dungeons (about the only thing I will give the game credit for doing right, and games like Lost Ark do the spectacle part much better) there is less to offer than D3 does.
Video gaming is a good reminder of where we are as a society. The loudest people are idiots who openly argue for practices that hurt them. If you think pay to win in a video game is ok. Then you are a stupid person, and need to be quiet when intelligent folks are talking. It’s that simple. Imagine playing basketball but one teams parents throw the ref 1000$ so their kids start with 20points on the board. That’s what this is. No stupid explanation will change you are getting rolled. And the company think you are so stupid they don’t even have to hide it.
This may well be one of the most important videos made in the gaming space. If this is how games will be in the future, dear god. I just hope the outcry is big enough, but seeing the revenue numbers… We may be doomed, because technically they just need to find 100 people who are really stupid. That‘s not even hard in todays time. :))))
LOL
I played Diablo 2 over and over again since i have a potato PC and I really loved it
the one thing I didn't like about Immortal is , it's not a Story/lore based game anymore the missions are easy and short it is a PvP focused game that wants you to grind for items to pplay pvp the pay to win is really not an issue for players like me who just want to play the story of diablo
We should be boycotting the hell out of blizzard right now
I wish people would more often but apparently games are hard to boycott. One mans trash is another mans treasure i guess.
It’s easy to boycott Blizzard because they don’t make anything good anymore.
You mean you weren’t anyway?
They're dead to me.
@@rd-lw4td it's a bad breakup. No hope for d4 anymore
I went into Immoral with an open mind, I managed about 8 hours and it left such a bad taste in my mouth, all this game did was make me want to play Diablo 3
I bought Wolcen after trying Diablo Immortal. It's one of the few aRPGs I haven't played to death before. Wolcen isn't the best aRPG ever made but it's a million times better than shite DIablo Immortal.
If you haven't played Grim Dawn, that's another one to try, despite the fact that the team stopped creating new content for it after the last xpac a couple of years ago from what I understand, it just got a balance update like yesterday.
@@Khotetsu I have something like 2000 hours in Grim Dawn lol. It's the only game I've ever bought when it was in early access. Great game.
@@ImmortalPrime Welp, so much for that then, lol. Definitely a great game, I'm not much of an A-RPG player, but it quickly cemented itself as a favorite of mine too.
I'm having fun in lost ark still, way better than Diablo immortal lol
that was one of the most thorough game reviews i have ever seen. wow subbed for life man. this was my first video of yours and im blown away. great job man. wow.
Thank you for your honest review, atleast the positive from this garbage game is that countries are actually taking loot boxes and predatory systems in gaming more seriously
I still remember D3 at launch, which makes me think they will try their bs with D4. I'm curious about what they will pull off. And thanks to reviewers, I don't need to buy to find out for myself.
you people get the games you deserve.every time blizzard makes a new expansion or some game,you all rush to buy it or spend money to it,only to realise that everything they make is minimum efford designed to keep you busy,while milking you.i speak with my wallet,i havent touched a blizzard game for years and although i realise that im a drop in the ocean,at least i feel good
True. D3 was utter crap and basically a scam (albeit "only" for the one time cost of the game) already, and people still ate that shit up.
I got to character-level P50 only to find that the next stage of gameplay (dubbed "Hell 2") requires 1200+ combat rating. I had 925. But the only way to get better gear was to clear Challenge Rift floor-30. But how could I, when even floor-21 is flashing red text on my screen that the monsters are too tough! But... in order to defeat them, I need better gear... A kind-soul power-ran me through floor-30, but as it turns out, you need to defeat it... solo. People told me I had to buy the bundles to transition to Hell 2--that's what they did. I realized that even if I did pay and got strong enough to do Hell 2 content, the community had moved on almost exclusively to Hell 3 content. I could F2P-grind to P90, but I'd still be stuck at combat rating ~1000 unless I cough up money to upgrade my gems to clear Challenge Rift floor-30. Clearly a paywall and not a sustainable model for getting new membership. Fun game, but predatory.
Diablo immortal, take hell with you on the go!
Excellent analysis, thank you ..... from one of many slowly duped into being a boiled frog :(
Thanks for the honest review! I appreciate your always telling it like it is in these reviews, and your deep-dives are always entertaining and enlightening and useful.
As a long time Diablo fan, it pains me to say I think going to avoid this title altogether given the uber-predatory practices it employs.
The moment this game was announced, i literally knew it was gonna be 1000s of dollars to be in the top tier.
I find it extremely difficult to feel bad for people who regret playing this game. It's not like the GaaS aspect was hidden. You knew what you were getting into. Empathy is wasted on people that made their bed and now have to lay in it. I wrote this game off at "you guys have phones, right?" and I never looked back. I take great satisfaction and validation in knowing I was right. I can only hope you all have learned your lesson, but I doubt it. The longer it takes you to learn, the more this monetization garbage will plague you. If heavily monetized games failed, the practice would stop. You only have yourselves to blame. Did you expect a corporation to say "no thanks, we don't want the shirt off of your back, we have ethics."? 😂
I'm pissed right now. They have zero communication. We have the first big update in 3 days with class change yet they give us no info about it lol
Very fair review. On my part I uninstalled the game both on my PC and phone once I reached Paragon lvl 16. I ended up buying the Battle Pass and the super cheap dungeon offer but then I saw what the endgame was and it wasn't for me. Playing PVP and going against a Crusader (same class as me) paragon 8 compared to my paragon 16 he had over 15,000hp more than me and attacked me a few time and completely rolled me over. Then I saw the PVP was not being normalized, it was enough. Made me go back to D2R and looking forward to Diablo 4. Made me tempted to hop back in D3 next season, so I guess Blizzard plan somehow might have worked on me ?
PS: Wyatt did not technically lie. He omitted the truth, which in my book is just as bad.
Pretty sure it was also a straight lie. He said 'no way to rank up gear using real money' but the Awaken system is a cash shop only bought item applied to the actual 12 slot gear items to give extra stats if you have a rank 10 legendary gem slotted into it. Also 'no way to acquire gear' has to go through some mental gymnastics to say being able to buy increased better loot and quanity chances in a MULTITUDE of ways isn't using money to get gear, just because the Exceptional triple stat Legendary Head is not directly in the shop.
Hate to break it to you, but a lot of the predatory monetization in Immoral will be brought over to D4. They did rehire Bobby after all, due to Immoral’s success.
@@anaalvensleben789 Yes I can agree to that. Re-reading the quote makes him seem like a liar indeed.
@@anaalvensleben789 agreed, it's a straight up lie in bad faith. gems obviously are gear, duh.
@@lordchaa1598 I'm still high on copium but I doubt they'd risk so manny nickle and diming in a numbered of a flagship title. Cosmetic ok (even if I prefer it'd be acquired in-game) maybe some stash tabs like PoE but beyond that I really doubt it. I hope I'm not wrong, we'll see !
I've seen alot of people complaining about running rifts saying it's just repeating bosses and stuff... and I'm wondering did they not play d2 or d3?
Glad I just play indies/niche Japanese, and Hentai games.
Hold up
@@TheVenhammer play Hentai games. They will save the world.
@@RedDragon-yp3tg True! 😂
You can really see why the developers were horrified when they thought the intended audience didn't have enough money for phones
Yeah, Quinn Ended up spending around 15.7K USD, to get the 5 star gem drop from the rift.
I'm so credulous. I saw an add for the free beta. Installed and ran around for a few hours having fun, and recommended the game to friends. A short while later the story fell apart and got really confused about what I was supposed to be doing. There were all these portals and interfaces and none of them seemed to have anything to do with a story or a quest or anything. Couldn't find any gems to socket into my items. Now here I am. I had never heard of "whales" or "battle pass Andy" or any of these things. I'm an old Diablo and Fallout player. You run around, collect stuff, level up and move through a story right? Now I understand why I became confused. I wasn't in a game. I was in a casino.
We all know what this was; a Diablo 3 remake specifically designed for the mobile market with monetizing the game 1000%. Why do people perpetuate this trash?